Hubble images neutron star at the heart of the Crab Nebula

View of the Crab Nebula made up of three separate Hubble images(Credit: NASA, ESA)

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured
an image of the super-dense neutron star at the heart of the famous Crab Nebula.
The nebula resulted from one of the earliest supernovae to be
recorded by human beings, and its striking form has made it a popular
target for amateur and professional astronomers alike.

Located roughly 6,500 light-years from
Earth in the constellation of Taurus, the chaotic twisting clouds of
dust and gas mark the site of one of the Universe's most violent and
dramatic events, a supernovae. In the year 1054, light emitted during the
explosion was the second brightest point in the night sky, outshone
only by Earth's Moon.

As the star that formed the nebula
died, it threw out vast quantities of material. In its death throws,
the stellar body's core began to collapse, causing massive amounts of
protons and electrons to condense and merge to form an ultra-dense
neutron core, which can still be seen to this day.

It is thought that a sugar cube-sized amount of an incredibly dense zombie stars such as the neutron star at the heart of the Crab Nebula would weigh the same as Mount Everest. What's more, neutron
stars spin incredibly fast. The specimen lurking in the depths of the Crab
Nebula is thought to rotate 30 times a second.

The recent composite image, composed of three separate images taken roughly 10 years apart, peers beyond
the striking finery of the Crab Nebula's outer filaments to gaze at
its neutron heart. Filimentary ionized gas is represented in red while a
blue glow marks the radiation thrown out by electrons spiraling within the star's powerful magnetic field at close to the
speed of light.

The neutron star itself can be observed
as the upper right-hand star of the two brightest stars near the
center of the image. The short video below zooms in from the constellation of Taurus to the inner parts of the Crab Nebula.